Daniel Kabichi’s telephone has been ringing a lot lately. As head of law enforcement operations within Malawi’s Department of Forestry, he represents the country’s latest strategy to fight deforestation and…
Finding endangered plants and animals for sale online remains easy. “Rampant” according to Mark Hofberg of the International Federation for Animal Welfare (IFAW). The strong word is significant since it comes from an…
Once the epicenter of the global trade in gold, illegal mining is once again surging across the Amazon. Its extraction and trade is not only fueling corruption, money laundering and…
I saw my first wild gorillas in Rwanda in 2002 and I was immediately drawn in by their power, their beauty, and the awareness that these amazing creatures were, despite…
It's as if a professional cleaner has been let loose in the rainforest. The whistles of birds and croaks of frogs have been vacuumed up, the messy understory cleared away.…
At a glance, Japan’s seafood sector is a financial success story. Indeed, between 2010 and 2019, the 70 publicly-listed companies exposed to the sector on the Tokyo Stock Exchange enjoyed…
In May 2017, the NGO Mighty Earth revealed the destruction of government forest reserves in Côte d’Ivoire by cocoa cultivation: out of 234, only six were still relatively intact. Deforestation…
A wave of planned “mega” infrastructure projects across the tropics of Latin America threatens the region’s forests and the biodiversity and carbon they contain, a group of scientists warned Aug.…
It was late afternoon deep in the dry season in Fatikh, a village in the Sahel region of Senegal. Out on his farm, El Hadj Ndiaye, a distinguished gentleman in…
Air pollution has significantly decreased over China amid the economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, signaling unanticipated implications for human health. “Given the huge amount of evidence that breathing…
For two decades or more, alarms have been sounding for the Mekong Delta. It's being hammered by climate change, by a proliferation of upstream dams, by unsustainable and inappropriate farming…
Farmer-managed natural regeneration (FMNR) of trees made headlines several years ago when 5 million hectares of Niger were found to have re-greened via the practice. FMNR is the encouragement of regeneration…
Cameras add monitoring power Field data collection is challenging in the best of conditions, and in an environment as harsh as Antarctica, large-scale, long-term field monitoring studies are rare. To…
It’s June, and migratory songbirds in the northern hemisphere are at their summer breeding grounds, having traveled thousands of miles from their warm-weather overwintering areas. Birds migrate as far north…
People love camera traps. Placed in the middle of a forest or savanna, their motion sensors trigger a photo when an animal or person passes by. They allow us to…
Satellite imagery has transformed how we assess changes in forest cover. The standard optical sensors carried by Earth-orbiting satellites capture the energy from sunlight reflected off objects on the Earth’s…
Researchers have identified a genetic analysis technique that pinpoints the harvest location of trees—a breakthrough that could help officials detect illegally traded timber. The multi-national research team tested the potential…
The United States, a major ivory market The sale of ivory across international boundaries has been banned since 1990, when the African elephant was listed among species prohibited for commercial…
Technology is changing how we investigate and protect planet Earth. The increased portability and reduced cost of data collection and synthesis tools, for instance — from visual and acoustic sensors…
Do you know where your endangered species are? A new online tool offers access to and analyses of a wealth of documents and data related to the United States Endangered…
Researchers from Indonesia and several other countries today (including authors of this piece) published in the journal Current Biology one of the most exciting new species descriptions in this century…
A conservation technology team at WWF-UK has produced a series of best-practice guidelines for three key data collection techniques—camera trapping, passive acoustic monitoring, and remote sensing through Light Detection and…
Clean, renewable energy holds immense potential to help us tackle a rapidly warming climate. But until a major shift away from fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas, it…
Just as humans and many terrestrial animals do, marine creatures use sound for communication in breeding, feeding, social structure maintenance and survival. However, the sounds produced by marine species have…
The United States alone has over four million miles of roadways, according to the Federal Highway Administration (FHA). Wildlife is threatened along every mile of this road network, as well…
Part of Brazil’s most altered landscape has proven that it's capable of regenerating after the effects of farming, timber plantations and ranching, according to a recent study. The research demonstrates…
Researchers have developed a new acoustic monitoring method to measure bees’ productivity to facilitate management and response to population decline.
Clinging on to rapidly disappearing Asian wetlands, the fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus) is at high risk of extinction. The cat is believed extinct in Vietnam; meanwhile, there are no confirmed…
Global Forest Watch analysis tools allow users without a GIS to assess forest loss or gain for countries, parks, or other areas.
Swimming 4 meters per second, a feeding blue whale swings open its jaws and, in four seconds, swallows 140 percent of its mass—a volume of water and krill the size…
